Build Thread 1978 Mercury Cyclone. The pig is in the pen.

RacEoHolic330 said:

I'm really digging your unique approach with the radiators. That is different for sure. I wouldn't expect anything less from you. I think you're definitely going to need some kind of side scoop to make that setup effective. With your fabrication skills, I don't see why you couldn't make a scoop that flows with the lines of the car. So, basically a square scoop will do just fine

I figured you would be refining that engine bay a little. I sometimes think satin black shows imperfections worse than gloss. The satin looks great though. You'll be happy with it once you smooth it to your liking. I wouldn't bother with much blocking below the pinch weld. None of that will be seen one the engine is in. I 'wasted' a good bit of time back there on my car and realized how little my efforts will be noticed.

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Thanks. I agree on the south of the pinch weld wasted effort thing,...it really wasn't the reason for my redo. The cowl, aprons, and radiator saddle were the reason there's filler back on top of the paint. After blocking it yesterday,..I did manage to level it close enough to get the final result I think I'm gonna like. What the hell,...it's only another 80.00 for one of those paint kits. All I know is after having to deal w/ the red cars' wavy assed passenger side at shows by "creatively parking it",...I woulda hated the way that bay looked even w/ that future Competition Orange painted 6 banger sitting loud and proud smack dab in the middle of it.

As for forcing the air in the radiators,..I don't know how effective some small scoop will be down that low at forcing air into the tube anyway,...(never set up a wind tunnel test 2-3" off the side of the car to see how air will flow past that brick).
I do know that those are Spal fans,..and once that box is sealed,...I expect a fair amount of air flow through the radiators simply because they're on.
I don't know how to activate them just yet. On one hand, I'm thinking I want to boost activate them,..but on the other,..I think I'd prefer them to run constant and keep the water as cool as it's gonna get. I'm hoping I can get the whole loop to be somewhere near ambient,...(thinking I'm probably gonna mount a water temp gauge sender in the side of the alum 3 gal reservoir to see where it ends up).

madspeed said:

I would like to submit this thread to a publisher. It has New York Times Bestseller qualities.

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It took 40 chapters,...but now I think it'll start to get interesting.

84Ttop said:

I second the notion of running the fans all the time to keep the water cool. Normal driving will provide a certain amount of heat soak and I think the best way to fight that is with the coolers running to keep things as cool as possible. A well in the tank to monitor temps is a great idea but I think the ultimate teller would be the IAT sensor.

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that's another question, can I split the signal from the iat sensor, and run a dedicated gauge to monitor while feeding the ecu at the same time?

I just didn't know if it would work.

I don't know everything you know .

Well,....I don't know almost everything.

Damn!. It's only been one day.

84Ttop said:

you would need to find a gauge that reads the same voltage as the sensor you'll be using but that's the only "hang up" that i could see.

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What kind of gauge? I looked for an IAT gauge,..and couldn't find anything. I assume you use a water temp gauge???

RacEoHolic330 said:

As 84 said, the linear output from the sensor needs to be what your gauge is looking for. Most gauges will have specs detailing what kind of input it needs. Jrichker has posted the output voltage and resistance ranges for the stock IAT sensor. As long as they match, you're golden.

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Megasquirt is set up to monitor a GM sensor. I already bought it. Again though,..what kind of gauge?

jrichker said:

Here's question for all you Mechanical Engineer types: How much HP do you gain for every 3 degrees drop in inlet temp at the intake valve?

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I don't count,..I'm not a mechanical engineer.

5.0Droptop said:

I had a feeling you would redo the engine bay. Im glad u did. It would have bugged you. And if course I would have reminded you every chance i got ...... *wAits for another item to mock him with*

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Yeah,...I'm glad I did too. I'm still not done, but the upper saddle, and the aprons look really good now. Bout two more hours, and I'll be back to the point of painting it again.

Total bill.....8 hours,.....two cans of primer,....and another black satin "kit",....80.00.

My satisfaction that it meets my standard.....Priceless.

I'm not that guy.

Today was a "Mike has to see his machinist buddy to get things done" day.

The list of things I need the "special talents" of my machinist for are as follows:
1. Machine the nose of the cam, turning it down from the worthless stock 250 cam gear size, down to SBF size, and then drill the face of the front journal to acommodate the dowel pin.
(Lets discuss this for a minute shall we)
Anybody that knows anything about billet roller cams knows that one of the processes they all go through is a final heat treating to harden all the lobes and journal surfaces. That heat treat makes the camshaft extremely durable, hard as a diamond, and basically is one of the things in an engine that doesn't wear out because of that.

It also makes it impossible to machine.

Had I known at the time of building the cam that there wasn't a decent gear set available, and I was gonna have to make a SBF gear fit,..I just woulda had the cam grinder modify the cam before the heat treating in the beginning. Unfortunately, I just assumed that you could get a decent gear set for just about any engine.

I chose,.................poorly.

Fortunately for me however, The Australian cam grinder I used used a different heat treating process called induction hardening,...that only hardens the lobe and journal surfaces to bearing race hardness,....all the rest of the cam is pretty much just north of standard hardness.


That nose turned down like butter.

Now the dowel pin,..........that was a different story.

Because the 250 journal diameter is much smaller than a SBF, drilling that 5/16" dowel pin got real close (w/i .250) to the journal surface of the first journal. The further away from center, the harder that damn cam got. the initial 1/8 pilot hole drilled easily enough, but the 3/16" bit was starting to complain, the 1/4" bit would actually snap and chatter,..and the 5/16" bit actually walked in the hole,..preferring to drill the softer metal towards the center, as opposed to the kryptonite at the outer edge.

The hole ended up being unusable.

So plan B was to keep the hole smaller, and closer to the center,...so we drilled two 1/4" holes at 90* perpendicular to the now mangulated hole.

That worked. but the cam took the better part of an afternoon, and shot the day.

Moving on,...back to the list:

2. Cut the crank keyway deeper to the front of the crank journal.
3. Mill the mating surface of my exhaust manifold ( Medusa) as it had crowned slightly from welding.
4. Open the center of my 36-1 crank trigger wheel to pilot over the hub on my SBF harmonic balancer.
5. Make three aluminum plugs to replace three of the five freeze plugs so that I can re-direct the water from the pump into the side of the engine, as opposed to the front. I'll drill and tap these three plugs 3/4 NPT, and block the front WP hole. I'll build a manifold to distribute the water after I figure out how I'm gonna get it there.
6. Build 4 spacers to properly space my rear calipers off of my $200.00 Cobra caliper brackets.

After all of that is done,....I'll be able to mock up the crank, and the cam,...and see if the custom roller chain I had to find ( That comes as a replacement for no Ford product) will fit my Ford product.

THAT, will be the next hurdle to jump.

**And.......I do like the new forum look. I got at 2014 black moon skin w/ Gluttony for a color option.
Thanks @Noobz347 .